Important takeaway from Imagine Commerce 2015

Imagine Commerce always been the most anticipated event in the Magento and e-commerce community. We at KrishaWeb were much excited about the event as we are going to participate in the biggest Magento event for the first time. We have experienced the enormous energy and skills of the community at Wynn Las Vegas during the Imagine Commerce (20th to 22nd April 2015).

Imagine Commerce is a best place to get introduced with the latest technologies, learn new development techniques and meet Magento partners from all across the world. Every day a new invention occurs in commerce and one needs to be updated with the latest trends and techniques to go along with the industry. This was the main manifesto of visiting Imagine commerce this year. We learn how the industry is changing and what customers are expecting from us during the three-day event. We have also spent a good time in breakout sessions where experts have reveled the best development and problem solving techniques. I have never thought how technology can simplify the things before attending those breakout sessions.

Imagine commerce is getting very popular among the community. It was started in 2011 addressing 650 passionate e-commerce experts, merchants and Magento development agencies. More than 2400 merchants, partners, eCommerce experts and developers from 40+ different countries have visited the event this year to exchange ideas and build relationships. It was a wonderful opportunity for us to build new business relationship and meet the eCommerce giants from all across the globe. I have met many Magento development agencies and partners to discuss our offerings. We have discussed various projects and modules of eCommerce business and get agreed to work on some Magento development projects. It was a wonderful experience for us as we have visited this event for the first time, but we are sure not to miss any imagines commerce in the future. These three days were full of collaboration, cutting edge sessions and filled with the events of networking. Following are some important take away from the Imagine Commerce 2015.

Data driven shopping experience at the speed of Invention is the key for success

Every day brings the new adventure to the commerce industry. Yet you are standing still, that means you are definitely falling behind the industry trends. Continuous invention keeps you ahead in the competition and helps you build the better brand identity for your business. Technology is upgrading at incredible speed and you must take a look over the consumer’s expectation and experience to advance further in the right direction. You don’t need to think much about what to do to improve the performance of business nowadays. What you have to do is just listening to the customers. Data driven shopping experience is the need of the hour. The customer will tell you how they like to shop and lead you to provide the right shopping experience. Data driven personalization will allow you to know who are your customers and how they like to shop. You can easily produce peerless shopping experience for consumers when you have the knowledge of liking and preferences of the customers. Consumer behavior data gathering and classification will help you to develop loyal clients for your business.

Innovations in payment and features of Magento

Special sessions about the innovations in payment and discussions over the best practices in design, feature set and security in Magento payments were the highlights of the Day 1 at Wynn. Payments and mobile conversions play a vital role in the success of any eCommerce business. Magento experts from across the globe have discussed best-in-class payment technology solutions that can increase the conversion. They have also highlighted the best design practices for the Magento payment implementation and also provided the special recommendations that can improve the user experience and cart conversion.

B2B commerce essentials

David Hess, Director of Sales, Perficient has debated how B2B eCommerce is different from the B2C eCommerce. He has explained how the new enterprise version of Magento has simplified the way you do business with customers, dealers and distributors. Special payment options with Magento 2, product customization feature, special pricing and quick order entry were the key areas Mr. David has discussed in Magento special session.

Day 2 started with the opening keynote by Mr. Craig Hayman (President of eBay Enterprise). “Our hope is to drive incredible innovation, together with the customer.” eBay enterprise is #1 e-commerce platform provider in the IR top 500. All the attendees learned about the latest inspiration, technologies, techniques and strategies to deliver “Unbound Commerce”.Speech from the man behind the success of Wynn, Mr. Steve Wynn was also pleasure to attend. The speech of Steve Wynn was the highlight of the conference. Following are some of the keynotes from the speech of Steve Wynn.

The Wynn Properties focuses only on Hotel Guest experience. Ensure they have the best guest experience ever.

Make a hero of your employees and celebrate their success. Ask employees to self nominate them on different customer experiences.

Reward Positive Behavior, which makes the guest, experiences the best.

People make people happy.

Leadership is about making ordinary people perform in an extraordinary way to achieve a goal.

Along with Craig Hayman and Steve Wynn, there were many other speakers delivered the breakout sessions on the second day of the event. Mark Lavelle (Senior Vice President & General Manager, Commerce Technologies, eBay Enterprise), Jamie Clarke (Co-Founder LiveOutThere.com), Chris Wells (Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Nexcess), Brent Peterson (Magento Evangelist) are some of the great speakers who attended the Imagine Commerce Summit. It was a really wonderful experience listening such a great personality. All these sessions were the real source of inspiration for all. Such events provide an opportunity for everyone to interact with the industry leaders. I grab the chance have an abundant conversation with Mr. Jamie Clarke about the ongoing market trends and future expectation.

Evolution of Magento development with the release of Magento 2

It was the most awaited announcement in Imagine Commerce 2015 by the community. Magento Enterprise Edition 1.14.2 is now available with many new features and updates. Magento 2 was one of the most anticipated sessions by the developer community. The developer beta version was released at the end of 2014 and since then everybody has been busy with evaluating the pros and cons of the Magento 2. Magento 2 is featured with lots of updates that can transform the way Magento has worked so far. The future of Magento development heavily depends on the success of Magento 2. Some of the important benefits of Magento 2 include,

Validation of Configuration results

Documentation Configuration format

Extensibility of configuration component

Optimization in configuration loading

Magento 2 is also focused to improve the performance and scalability. Magento 2 has lots of changes as compared to Magento 1. X versions in home page, catalog and product views. Some of the performance improvement highlights include,

Heavy class decomposition and resolving dependencies

Eliminating unnecessary requests

Caching repositories and caching of attribute meta data.

Speeding up object manager and interception.

Layout performance improvement.

Complete compatibility with HHVM 3.6

Importance of responsive layout and digital makeover of the store

Responsive Website Design is one of the most critical aspects of eCommerce store success. More than 50% users purchase through mobile devices nowadays and that shows the importance of having a website that offers the best user experience to both desktop and mobile users. Brendan Falkowski has shared his experience of the last four years experimenting with various aspects of responsive design and eCommerce. It is also equally important to carefully craft the digital marketing strategy along with creating Responsive design structure. It is a time now to go beyond organic search. Digital marketing experts have shared their ideas and experience on how you can transform the digital marketing success with the community. Ronald Dod (Founder & Owner, Gray Umbrella Marketing), has shared the best practices for optimizing Magento powered store to acquire more customers and building superior brand online. Adam Silverman has discussed how multichannel selling can help you to improve online revenue of Magento store.

Imagine commerce is getting better each year. It is the best platform to get introduced with the latest trends in the industry and interact with the technical experts. You can get the unbelievable solutions for your technical problems with the experts in the breakout sessions. It is the common space for all eCommerce stakeholders come together and share their ideas and expertise for the better tomorrow. I not only got introduced to the latest technology, but also learned lots about new techniques dealing with Magento and e-commerce platform.

I was very excited about visiting the Imagine Commerce Summit while leaving for the Las Vegas. At the end of the Imagine Commerce, I am glad that I got the opportunity to attend this event. It was a memorable experience being at the Wynn and the attending biggest Magento event. I met lots of Magento experts from agencies all across the globe and built new business relationships with them. It is always great to be with experts and discussing the ideas with them. Imagine Commerce 2015 has provided that opportunity for me. Taking the valuable experience of Imagine Commerce 2015, I am looking forward to meet the community friends next year again.